Melancholy: The Last Hurrah
by frooit
Summary: So the war is over. What now?
1. the last hurrah

**melancholy: the last hurrah**  
><em>sledgesnafu, mini-series (part one)_  
><em>by frooit<em>

.

.

.

.

So the war is over.

At least you're mostly sure of that. The violent enemy you fought tooth and nail with for what was three years of your life has been silenced by the mega ton arousal of the most devastating weapon never before imagined. They call it the A Bomb or the Fat Man, and doesn't that just beat all? Like fumigating an old house. An extermination. A bomb that can silence an empire, that can shut off _kamikaze _and _banzai_ efforts and the endless swap of bullets and artillery thunder, the haze of clumsy conquests, the eventual surges of shame and disgust. Unthinkable.

It hasn't stopped the remnant anger and the flashes (clear cut) of brutalities come and gone. It won't eclipse what you've seen with your own two eyes. Men just boys gutted and torn on either side (yours and theirs) and the bodies just keep piling higher still. But it's over now, or, at least it is for you. In all respects of fighting and dying and serving your country on the front lines of combat and despair, you're done, let loose, free to be free (even if you're unsure of that). You're on your way back to your respective point of origin, back to Mobile, and that should bode better than it is.

Your mother and father, your white Georgia Cottage, your green fields, your oak-lined avenue and hot water. The aromas of cooked foods, untainted sunlight and clean, white sheets. They're all waiting. No more long, suffering nights or stomach pains, or loose bowels, or a dry tongue, or chapped lips, or unyielding thirst and borderline insanity (_goddammit, keep your head down!_). That's not the entire list either. This list in full resides next to your heart, in your breast pocket, lining the word of God.

"Excited?"

You tilt your head up.

Snafu is looking out the window, watching the scenery run by as reeled film.

"Well, yeah," you say. "Of course I am."

You're drinking your third cola in the last two hours and still savoring the forgotten taste.

It's in that reverent, heady place that you say, "What about you?"

Snafu continues his vacant watch, his stand off with the quasi-reality out the mirrored window pane.

You lick the stickiness from your lips.

The constant movement of the train under and around you fills in the gaps in his verbal absence (and otherwise). Civilians and soldiers (mostly soldiers) ramble and laugh and sing around you, filling the gap further with a general good air, a relaxed nature. It might as well be quiet. It might as well be still ocean. It might as well be a foreign language. You'll avoid certain emotions until you can approach them again in a quiet, solitary place. Become reacquainted with joy, bliss, carelessness.

You don't quite recognize them now.

The stewardess hums about the car, stopping along the way to lean her bosom into the view of some lonely military boy. Making those rounds she eventually has to stop by you.

You're still waiting on Snafu.

You'll be waiting a stretch**.**

She appears now and buzzes a question at you both, her voice all languid tones and sugary song, her pale skin all too abundant and dying to escape. Snafu ignores it. You smile your best smile (or what you can remember as your best smile) and shake your head, _no, I'm alright, thank you_, but you forget to give her your empty cola bottle as she dims and moves on.

You set it on the seat next to you and look back to your companion.

His eyes have shifted to watch the girl depart.

"Nothin' to get excited 'bout," he says, watching the stewardess' tail.

Just like he did the time before.

You smirk and take a little jab.

"Why's that?"

He doesn't like personal questions (anything _remotely_ personal). There was no _how's your family, where do you come from, what does your father do_ as they went along, fighting, dying, crying. Even in the beginning. None of that. He gets touchy about a simple _hey_ sometimes. He'll sneer or flip you off. It's _take your best shot_ when it comes to him, or, maybe it's _you should care less._

He sets his jaw, rolls it, chews his lips.

That's all you're gonna get.

You leave the dialogue incomplete. It fits right in with your new feelings and future worries.

That too-sweet cola syrup swamps your palate, screaming contrast.

You shouldn't have had so many.

"Think I'll shut my eyes."

His long, strong jaw, it's angled away and toward the window again. His fingers pinching the dying remains of a cigarette. His neck and collarbone, hidden behind his uniform best, are smooth and clean, unbroken by metal shrapnel or polyp skeletons or bullet strafes or sudden falls or itching insect bites. He's washed that off and healed that away. On the outside. In his sleepy eyes, that refuse again to combat your own, they're hollow, vacant, drained.

You'll both be fighting wars for some time.

.

.

.

.

_to be continued..._


	2. sleep drenched

**melancholy: sleep drenched **  
><em>sledgesnafu, mini-series (part two)_  
><em>by frooit<em>

_._

.

.

._  
><em>

You wake from a shallow sleep to find him gone.

That space across from you that he filled... empty. It's strict and instant panic, sharp and wild, like the crazed pull on a caught fishing line or your head about to implode. It doesn't leave all at once like a swoon or a head rush, it throbs on, taking up home, becoming that stressed pressure after the air-sucking percussion of a mortar strike. It beats a steady pulse as you sit up and look down the darkened isle. The formerly active crowd now sleeps slumped in their own seats, out like a smoking lamp. You must have been out for some time. The pulse grows hectic from there, rousing super-heated bile up your all too dry throat.

This is a well-visited place and a well-known guest.

This ate up a lot of your clout during wartime.

It smells like fear but the appeal of despair overwhelms.

You sit back, sweat tickling.

It's then that he comes strolling up the isle.

The first thing in your head comes out your mouth.

"Thought you'd gone."

You snap that mouth shut.

And hope he chalks it up to sleep fog.

His grin (because he never really smiles, does he, it's always that damn _grin_) stirs unease. You listen to its suggestion and watch him closely, dubious, fearful of illusion, deception. You try your best (your damndest, _sir_) to keep a level head but that was always just a ruse, wasn't it? It was something to help you get along. You're really just screwed, Eugene, and the shitty thing is... you know it all too well.

"Don' hold sittin' for so long."

"You should come home with me."

"Huh?"

You can chalk _that _up to sleep fog.

You snap your eyes shut and chew your cheek.

"I mean, Mobile. You should come to Mobile with me. You can stay there."

You add, as if to assure (yourself) him, "For a little while."

He's descending, sprawling, _reclaiming_ his seat when you reopen your two eyes. It's those set of eyes that have seen nothing the likes free peoples would ever want to on their own accord. Snafu's eyes (like eyes, as wary as sorrow, subdued memories) are on you. They're deadly calm, chilling blue. That crease in his brow is alarming, the stare itself damning. His overall weird face, with those too-big eyes, those lick or bite swollen lips (more often than not spitting strife or chewing the end of a Lucky)... it gets to you. What are you going to do without that reassuring glance and that voice in your ear telling you if there's trouble afoot? Further more, because your mind is apt to go there, what will he do?

"Don' think ah have better things tah do?"

"Well, you said—"

"I'll go."

"What?"

You balk.

"Don' roll ovah and don' play fetch though."

He grins to himself and lights a cigarette.

Your thoughts scramble but latch on at last.

_My dog died_.

You play impassive.

Give him an inch, he socks you in the teeth.

"You're not messing with me, are you?"

He offers a smoke but you decline.

"S'time to celebrate, G. Relax."

.

.

.

.

_to be continued..._


	3. paper tiger

**melancholy: paper tiger**  
><em>sledgesnafu, mini-series (part three)_  
><em>by frooit<em>

_._

.

.

._  
><em>

You play that over and over, his advice, his voice (_relax, relax, relax_) through the rest of the train ride and the stewardess' continued feeble attempts at getting attention from the either of you. You play it as he smokes and drinks and gazes out the window, not looking your way, not giving you much of anything. The sudden relief of the war time conclusion (but that word isn't right, there's been no conclusion just a sort of plateau struck) seems to melt away the closer to home you get.

Your father will be standing there at the station, waiting. That confident smile of his and that same straight-backed patience all images from a mental film logged forever ago to keep you sane. Your father: a man of reason, a man of logic, a man of old war. He'd warned you adamantly a lifetime ago not to do this. _Relax, relax, relax. _You'll just have to wait and see what came of it.

He stands on the platform, the hint of a smile appealing his face.

That face goes gradually by the train's window and distorts.

The train's hoot and holler gets you both to your feet.

Snafu grabs his duffle and yours.

He offers yours to you, drawing eye contact.

"Don' look so scared."

"Huh?"

"Look like yer gonna piss yerself."

You grab the duffle.

He grins and slaps you on the shoulder.

.

.

.

Your father is surprised to find an extra body to take back, but he's not exactly disapproving either. That might just be because he's not ready to argue with his boy back from war. You repeat your mantra louder (_relax, relax, relax_) as he leads the two of you away. Far away from the train. Far away from just another thing connecting you to the reality of where you've been all this time.

There isn't much conversation.

It gives your internal tune plenty of room to become wide and brash and screaming.

.

.

.

Your mother stands at the threshold of the cottage when you arrive. You all pile out of the car in a one-by-one fashion. Snafu steps off to the side as she comes rushing down the front steps. You come bravely forward. She first meets your eyes and then pulls you into a hug. It's a good moment, a triumphant moment. A real wave of relief hits you then. It abates, however, when you realize Snafu is removing himself from it as much as possible. He's looking at his shining boots while your mother tells you how proud she is. He's fussing with his collar and his tie as she starts getting a little carried away.

Tears shine in her eyes.

You hadn't 'd been tuned somewhere else.

"Mom, this is—"

_(relax, relax, relax)_

She puts Snafu up in the spare room.

It's a whole of seven steps down the hall from yours.

You're not sure how you feel about that.

.

.

.

There's no big to-do your first night in. The family gets together at the dinner table and has a quiet meal. The smell alone tickles and turns your stomach. Those same aromas, those same good memories and dishes and silverware and glasses. Those little things you used to enjoy, those little things you remember as a boy... now your enemy, ready to sabotage your return.

Snafu sits across from you, looking a little more than out of place but entirely comfortable with it. A little more than the cat who got the cream. It makes you nervous, to say the least, or maybe it's angry. There are those emotions again, loose and livid and hard to follow. You're going to be struggling with 'em for months to come. Although, let's not kid ourselves-it'll be years.

Snafu smiles (_grins_) and it's truth, no hollowed recesses or distant darkness there. He eats and even carries on clumsy conversation. You complete the role reversal as a solemn and awkward vessel, pushing your food around your plate. As torn up as ever. As lost as ever.

Your mother notices and brings it to light with a, "Gene, you're rather quiet."

Snafu is subtle when he looks (but not subtle enough).

You can taste the worry and wonder.

You choose to squash it.

You'll do your damnedest not to inflict harm.

(Not on anymore.)

(Least of all your mother.)

"Just tired is all."

So, you're both dismissed.

.

.

.

You take Snafu out to the back porch.

The night is warm.

He lights a cigarette. You begin packing your pipe.

"What a sweet deal ya got here," he breathes.

"Beats rolling in the mud," you say.

You light your piece, puffing steadily. It's the only light other than the glow from the covered windows.

You can just see his profile, his outline, dark and dismal.

That's not unfamiliar.

"Was this a good idea?"

You don't recall having the thought. You're listening to yourself say it just as much as he is.

He takes a long drag, sucks his teeth.

"Did'ja' really think you'd live happily ever after?" he responds.

You're not sure how you feel about that either.

.

.

.

.

_to be continued..._


	4. the penny drops

**melancholy: the penny drops**  
><em>sledgesnafu, mini-series (part four)_  
><em>by frooit<em>

_._

.

.

._  
><em>

You can't sleep.

You lie awake and blink at the ceiling. Your teeth grit. It's the assaulting and constant screaming that you hear. It's the crying and the hell fire heat and the sweltering humidity and the acid in your guts (oil-slicked and literally burning a trail from your gullet). It's the blood on your hands and the serrated coral edge and the waist-deep mud. It's the constant biting bugs and the horrid smell (oh, the _depth and breadth _of it) and the choking fear. It's the guilt, the pain. It's the flashes and the bangs and the ominous, late-night rustling (anticipation) and _did'ja' really think_.

You roll out of bed and come to the door.

Your hand pauses on the cold knob.

Go down the hall, take those seven or eight steps, and come to a brick wall.

.

.

.

_It's mid afternoon and the two of you are lazing about on the crisp grass skirting your family's property. You're soaking up the sunlight, breathing equal parts tobacco smoke and fresh (intense, austere, powerful) air. You lie back and listen to the birds and the wind and the almighty silence and calm. You note the few birdcalls you can from the distance. Snafu is silent in any agreement, head tilted, loose on its roots, bruised eyes shut, lips pursing his half-gone cigarette._

_It's for hours that this might go on. A moment you figured you would never get to share with anyone, really. You figured, you'd decided (whether you really wanted to or not, it was apt for the time), that you would die back there. Back in your world of oceans blue and skies grey and mud mud mud, rifles, and death._

_"Too good tah be true," Snafu mumbles._

_You're turning to him. He's looking beyond you though and to the horizon, those peepers of his so glassy huge, pupils sucked tight. The Sun is hiding. Your skies grey have come to visit (and your oceans blue too; loud in the curve of iris)._

_You wince._

_Everything is all the more bright and stinging the less sleep you get._

_._

.

._  
><em>

You've rolled out of bed and come to the door.

Your hand is paused on the freezing knob.

Fight or flight.

You decide.

You turn the knob and find you're not opening on to the hall outside, you're opening on the inside of a room. A room hung in shadow, a room that used to be your brother's but now here stays a refugee, a spectre, a living, breathing ghost. Your ghost. You move to the center of the room and the bed there. You climb in next to the shrouded figure. It's all said and done before you know _what's_ been done.

Walk through a veil of smoke; walk through a threshold.

Whatever is on the other side must be better than here.

More often than not that's not true.

More often than not holding to hope is a dead man's prayer.

Snafu doesn't move. You inch closer. He faces away from you, his back (surprisingly) showing to the door. He's putting off an enormous amount of heat. You move up and take a breath in. It's cigarettes and crisp uniform and shoe polish and sour smoker's sweat that you get. He moves now, turning his head just. You can't see his face so there's no expression, only the wetness in his eyes gleaming back, lit by midnight stars and translucent cloud.

.

.

.

_Storms move with purpose coming in off the coast. Your day is quickly turned to night, turned to rain, turned to harping gusts and you're both soaked before you even get within sight of the house and the covered porch. You spring up the two steps and onto the deck at last, Snafu following much in line. He looks like you remember him best. It's a blinding reference, a stark call back, and you want to stagger from it._

_His hair is flat, his eyes damp (squinting droplets away; fluttering eyelashes, fluttering, fluttering) and his mouth, well, it's a sneer. All the characteristics of a Marine not so long ago, none of the dress. You pull him close in that moment, by the collar of your borrowed shirt, and bam_—__

_smack him right on the lips._

_He goes ridged._

_But you're thinking, _This is for always watching out.

_His lips are wet._

This is for a job well done.

_Wet and cold._

This is for being a friend.

.

.

.

You move closer still, pressing your chest to his spine and the top of your thighs to the back of his. He looks to you no more. You bring up your left arm and lay it over his shoulder to grasp his chest, his collarbone, his heart. You both breathe: his chest swells, yours delays, ears straining to listen. The whiff you're afforded now is something entirely different. It's his singular smell, wild, roving, and biting strong. It's plainly enough to make your eyes water. Enough to make your throat clamp shut. Enough to make you moan (pain, agony). This is what comfort should feel like but it's just the clap of thunder.

You open your eyes and a sterile white ceiling shows above.

Lightning streaks. It calls out the white, pressing dark corners clean.

The noise and flash still conjures fear, even at this age.

It's woken you from many dreams.

Many you still have since getting off that train alone.

.

.

.

.

end


End file.
